An assassination market is a

prediction market Prediction markets (also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures or event derivatives) are open markets where specific outcomes can be predicted using financial incentives. Essentially, they are exchange-trad ...

where any party can place a bet (using anonymous electronic money and pseudonymous remailers) on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. This would incentivise assassination of individuals because the assassin, knowing when the action would take place, could profit by making an accurate bet on the time of the subject's death. Because the payoff is for accurately picking the date rather than performing the action of the

assassin Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

, it is substantially more difficult to assign criminal liability for the assassination.

History

Early uses of the terms "assassination market" and "market for assassinations" can be found (in both positive and negative lights) in 1994's "The

Cyphernomicon Timothy C. May, better known as Tim May (December 21, 1951 – December 13, 2018) was an American technical and political writer, and electronic engineer and senior scientist at Intel. May was also the founder of the crypto-anarchist movement. He ...

" by

Timothy C. May Timothy C. May, better known as Tim May (December 21, 1951 – December 13, 2018) was an American technical and political writer, and electronic engineer and senior scientist at Intel. May was also the founder of the crypto-anarchist movement. He ...

, a cypherpunk. The concept and its potential effects are also referred to as assassination politics, a term popularized by Jim Bell in his 1995–96 essay of the same name. Early in part 1, Jim Bell describes the idea as: Bell then goes on to further specify the protocol of the assassination market in more detail. In the final part of his essay, Bell posits a market that is largely non-anonymous. He contrasts this version with the one previously described. Carl Johnson's attempt to popularise the concept of assassination politics appeared to rely on the earlier version. There followed an attempt to popularise the second in 2001 that is ongoing today. Technologies like Tor and

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public di ...

have enabled online assassination markets as described in parts one to nine of ''Assassination Politics''.

Assassination Market website

The first prediction market entitled 'Assassination Market' was created by a self-described crypto-anarchist in 2013. Utilising Tor to hide the site's location and Bitcoin based bounties and prediction technology, the site lists bounties on

US President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

, economist

Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Dur ...

and former

justice minister A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

of Sweden

Beatrice Ask Eva Carin Beatrice Ask (born 20 April 1956) is a Swedish politician and a member of the Moderate Party. She has served as Governor of Södermanland County since 1 January 2020. Ask served as member of the Swedish Riksdag for Stockholm Municip ...

. In 2015 the site was suspected to be defunct, but the deposited Bitcoins were cashed out in 2018.

References

External links

Jim Bell's ''Assassination Politics'' essay
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

Mirror

The Usenet discussion containing the initial publication of the first part of ''Assassination Politics''
at

Google Groups Google Groups is a service from Google that provides discussion groups for people sharing common interests. The Groups service also provides a gateway to Usenet newsgroups via a shared user interface. Google Groups became operational in February ...

Academic discussion of assassination markets from an anarchist perspective
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Assassination Market Crypto-anarchism Prediction markets Anarcho-capitalism Homicide

History

Assassination Market website

See also

References

Further reading

External links